Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
